How QB's perform when facing perfectly covered plays vs non-perfectly covered plays | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

How QB's perform when facing perfectly covered plays vs non-perfectly covered plays

phinfann13

phinfann13

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This is pretty interesting. Tua performs very well (4th best) when plays are perfectly covered. I would imagine this speaks to how good his accuracy is and his ability to move around in the pocket to extend plays. However, he performs very poorly (5th worst) when plays are not perfectly covered. Does anybody have any insight on why this could be? Initially it feels like the QB's that are better on that axis have good offensive systems where guys get open more. I'd love to hear some opinions on this. Also, I'll include the breakdown of how they perform when pressured and without pressure.

 
My theory/WAG as to why Tua would perform worse on poorly covered plays comes down to the skill positions. Lets say you have a coverage breakdown and Tua throws a 5 yard pass to a wide open Gaskin. Gaskin ends up gaining 10 yards. Mahomes sees a coverage breakdown and throws a 5 yard pass to Hill who ends up taking it to the house. Both QBs did the same thing, but the EPA for Mahomes was much better.
 
My uneducated guess would be he can more easily see what's going on in the perfectly covered plays, whereas there is some gray area or subterfuge going on that effects his ability to decipher the not perfectly covered plays.
 
phinfann13 said:



This is pretty interesting. Tua performs very well (4th best) when plays are perfectly covered. I would imagine this speaks to how good his accuracy is and his ability to move around in the pocket to extend plays. However, he performs very poorly (5th worst) when plays are not perfectly covered. Does anybody have any insight on why this could be? Initially it feels like the QB's that are better on that axis have good offensive systems where guys get open more. I'd love to hear some opinions on this. Also, I'll include the breakdown of how they perform when pressured and without pressure.

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There is no mention about the QB being hurried as part of this assessment.

I suspect that there will be more defensive players attacking weak offensive lines. For this reason alone, there would be less well covered plays in the defensive backfield.

This would certainly be the situation facing any Dolphins QB last year, wouldn't it? - LOL
 
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Another thought is perhaps when players are not playing in the proper defensive alignment, Tua has less recognition/understanding and could get "thrown off" his normal check-downs and assignments.
 
The dot size which they say is 'how many perfectly covered' plays he had is pretty small.

What do they define as a perfectly covered play though? Is the dot size % based or based on actual numbers? Are 'drops' factored in?

Interesting, but I don't think this chart really means anything without more data.. and PFF generally makes content to garner attention, not provide meaningful analysis.
 
Interesting..Assuming the premise and research is accurate.
 
phinfann13 said:



This is pretty interesting. Tua performs very well (4th best) when plays are perfectly covered. I would imagine this speaks to how good his accuracy is and his ability to move around in the pocket to extend plays. However, he performs very poorly (5th worst) when plays are not perfectly covered. Does anybody have any insight on why this could be? Initially it feels like the QB's that are better on that axis have good offensive systems where guys get open more. I'd love to hear some opinions on this. Also, I'll include the breakdown of how they perform when pressured and without pressure.

Click to expand...

Tua had to be good in that area since he really didn’t have receivers who got much separation in their routes. Waddle was doubled teamed on most pass plays and that made it hard for him to get much separation and the rest of the receivers, including Gesicki just didn’t have the speed or moves to create any separation.

Thankfully Tua is extremely accurate and with hopefully a better OL and the addition of Hill and Wilson to the WR corp, Tua will get more opportunities to hit more routes downfield.
 
So he is 4th or 5th last in plays they are open. Interesting. Maybe he can't throw players open. You have to be able to anticipate the route.
 
AdamD13 said:
My guess is Tua went into shock when he saw a Dolphin receiver open and couldn’t believe his eyes.

By the time he realized he wasn’t hallucinating it was too late.
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While that sure holds some truth to it I think it probably had to do with opposing defenses allocating more players as pass rushers on those plays where coverage was less than perfect, thus pressure since our OL sucked, not seeing the open man and the open man not doing much after the catch.
 
Fantastic share, thank you. Plenty to talk about. For starters, what we all know in Miami: Tannehill is one of the best in the league without pressure, but falls off when under pressure. Same as Cousins, no surprise there, either. Other QBs with a reputation of not being good under pressure also see their numbers fall off: Carr, Garoppolo, Goff. Improvisers such as Josh Allen and Kyler Murray show the opposite pattern, although not Watson or Russell Wilson.

I was surprised to see that name at the bottom of the list from left to right when under pressure! Very, very interesting.

Also, note how low EPA is under pressure, something we discussed a week or two ago: only 5 QBs have barely positive EPA when under pressure against bad coverage, but when not under pressure, the minimum EPA is above .2. The best QB under pressure is barely better than the worst under no pressure.

About Tua, however, I'm afraid the info doesn't tell us much, considering the kind of offense being run here. Short passes have low upside but are hard to defend, maybe that's what we're seeing with Tua being low against uncovered but high against covered receivers.
 
Simple idea.

Teams tightly cover the areas he's good at throwing to and relax more I the areas he isn't. So receivers will be more open in those areas.
 
GhostArmOfMarino said:
Simple idea.

Teams tightly cover the areas he's good at throwing to and relax more I the areas he isn't. So receivers will be more open in those areas.
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Meanwhile, he’s under more pressure, by a whopping 25%, over the next most pressured QB. It’s no secret that when you can get constant pressure with 3 or 4 linemen, your coverage scheme gets vastly easier to execute. Give any good DC that week to week and they’ll dominate.
 
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